Why is this invention necessary?
The Problems:
USB devices are extremely popular as today's standard connectors for host computers to connect and communicate to its peripheral devices. Typical USB devices, such as, computer keyboards, mice, printers, cameras, scanners, modems, battery chargers, PDAs, cellular phones, external hard disks (flash drives) and so forth. However, the trouble is, the peripheral part of USB male connector is “keyed” and not symmetrical to the USB female connector, so it has to be in the correct orientation (to match the USB female counter part) in order to plug into the USB female connector of the host computer. The USB male connector on the peripheral is a narrow rectangle. It looks symmetrical outside but is “keyed” inside. The USB female receptacle connector is also a rectangular and looks symmetrical outside too. Some USB male connector does have markings of its orientation. It takes education to know which side should be up or down (or left and right). After all, some computers have the female connector mounted upside down, and some computers have their USB connector mounted vertically. It is difficult, confusing and frustrating for computer users to know the right way to plug their devices (or cables) into the host computers, especially since the USB female connector is often hard to see and reach or on the back side of the host computers.
When they cannot tell which orientation is correct, some USB users use too much force trying to insert the USB male connector and end up damaging both sides of the USB connectors.
The other problem is that these conventional USB male connectors have only one set of connection pins, unlike host computers, have more, if these connectors are damaged, this USB based product becomes useless.
The Solution:
The present invention is directed to provide solutions to the poorly designed conventional USB connectors with a new user-friendly USB male connector which is not polarized, not keyed. It can plug into the USB female connector of the host computer either way.
Further more, somehow, if some of the connection pins are damaged, there is a 2nd set of connector pins to provide the spare connection.